"No two people see the external world in exactly the same way. To every separate person a thing is what he thinks it is -- in other words, not a thing, but a think." - Penelope Fitzgerald

Mar 13, 2013

"God's Christian Warriors" With Scriptural Proofs

CNN Documentary excerpt on a Christian preacher...

The
teachings of Jesus make it clear that love comes first so these hate
filled policy stances are NOT Christian (see video above)...

New Testament

Matthew 5:17: "Do
not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have
not come to abolish them but to fulfill them." (ex. thou shalt not kill)

Matthew 22:36-4036 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

37
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with
all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest
commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as
yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two
commandments.

As
the preacher in the above video explains, Christianity (the teachings
of Jesus as opposed to the Old testament) has been perverted to serve
the needs of warmongerers.

Side by side comparison:New Testament

Matthew 5:17: "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the
Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them." (ex.
thou shalt not kill)

Matthew 22:36-40
36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with
all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest
commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as
yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two
commandments.

What the GOP is following is rather some of the worst of the Old Testament...

Hosea 13:16 (King James) Samaria will bear her guilt because she has rebelled against her God.
They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to pieces, and their pregnant women ripped open.

Numbers 31: 17-18
17. Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.
18. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.

Deuteronomy 20:16
However, in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as
an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes.

1 Samuel 15:2-4
2 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to
Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt.
3 Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and
spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and
sheep, camel and ass.
4 And Saul gathered the people together, and numbered them in Telaim,
two hundred thousand footmen, and ten thousand men of Judah.

Psalm 137:8-9
8 O daughter of Babylon, O destroyed one, O the happiness of him who repayeth to thee thy deed, That thou hast done to us.
9 O the happiness of him who doth seize, And hath dashed thy sucklings on the rock!

i.e. “If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married
and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall pay the girl’s father
fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the girl, for he has violated
her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives” (Deuteronomy
22:28–29).

Extract: "Arizona lawmakers have drawn up strict new abortion laws...
that decree pregnancy begins two weeks before conception. Final
legislative approval was given to a bill that would ban most abortions
after 20 weeks of pregnancy, handing Republicans their latest win in
ongoing national efforts to impose greater restrictions on abortion. But
the bill defines a foetus' gestational age 'as calculated from the
first day of the last [mother's] menstrual period'. This would mean,
given that a woman does not produce eggs until a fortnight after her
period, a baby can be terminated two weeks before it was conceived."

1. Leviticus 19:27 “‘Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard.

2. Leviticus 5:2 "'Or if a person touches anything ceremonially
unclean--whether the carcasses of unclean wild animals or of unclean
livestock or of unclean creatures that move along the ground--even
though he is unaware of it, he has become unclean and is guilty

3. Leviticus 11:7 And the pig, though it has a split hoof completely divided, does not chew the cud; it is unclean for you.

4. Leviticus 11:9 "'Of all the creatures living in the water of the seas
and the streams, you may eat any that have fins and scales.

5. Deuteronomy 22:9 Do not plant two kinds of seed in your vineyard; if
you do, not only the crops you plant but also the fruit of the vineyard
will be defiled

6. Deuteronomy 22:11 Do not wear clothes of wool and linen woven together.

7. Leviticus 19:19 "'Keep my decrees. "'Do not mate different kinds of
animals. "'Do not plant your field with two kinds of seed. "'Do not wear
clothing woven of two kinds of material.

YOU ARE NOT CHRISTIAN IF YOU DON'T FOLLOW THE FIRST AND SECOND COMMANDMENTS OF JESUS i.e.

Question by Colbert: 'How can the caves be 32,000 years old when the world is only 6,000 years old?'

Answer: Colbert is referring to the dating system derived from the
Gregorian calander and the Genesis version of creation (i.e. everything
was created in 6 days and the 7th day God rested).

The problem here can be solved from the New Testament...

"2 Peter 3:8 (KJV 1900) 8 - But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one
thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand
years as one day."

I.e. To say the earth was created in a 'day' is a metaphor. Someone who
wants to cause problems can focus on the old testament reading rather
than the new testament one.

Those who believe that the Apostle Peter is wrong (i.e. about Genesis
being a metaphor on "days of creation") are obviously NOT Christian.

Old college paper going into more detail:

The Old Testament has been Spliced Together from Different Ancient Writers!

This paper looks at some differences between the Yahwist (J) and
Priestly (P) sources in the Book of Genesis. The theory of Yahwist and
Priestly sources of writing for the Hebrew Bible comes from the
Documentary Hypothesis.

The Yahwist vs. The Priest (in the Book of Genesis)

The passages in question, Genesis 1 and 2 (The story of creation)
and Genesis 6:5-8:22 (The flood story, or the story of destruction),
are accepted to be written by two distinct authors. The first is
considered to be earlier of the ‘Yahwist’ tradition (i.e. when Yahweh
was the most popular name for the divine) and is said to come from the
time of the ‘United monarchy’, it is given the symbol J. Genesis
2:4b-2:25 is considered to be written by J. The second is considered to
come from a priestly source from the exilic or post exilic period in
Hebrew history and is given the symbol P. Genesis 1-2:3 is accepted as
written by P. The flood story is a splicing between both P and J.

That both versions were revered is not argued because, though they
have been spliced together quite artistically, there are major
contradictions in the text…it follows that the texts from these two
sources were spliced together a while after they were written which
would give them time to become revered so that the person splicing them
together would not want to mess with what the texts say though once
spliced they contradict each other quite obviously.

I, however, am not interested in the contradictions but the
difference in the mind set (i.e. way of seeing the world/perception.)
between the J and P versions of the creation and flood stories. After
showing in what way J’s mind set can be contrasted from P’s mind set
using the creation story, I will trace these different strains of
perception through the flood story and possibly indicate a couple of
lines which may have been wrongly attributed to J.

Comparing Genesis 1, where the author uses the phrase ‘heaven and
earth’, to Genesis 4b, ‘earth and heaven, reveals the first clue as to
the difference in perception. P’s was centered around heaven and J’s
around earth. At a glance this does not seem to be a big difference but
the implications of this are. P being a priest was in exile or just got
over exile he lived in Babylon(probably) his mission was most likely to
preserve the Hebrew tradition so the Babylonian culture does not wipe it
out. The system of priests was adopted from its Babylonian hosts and
the creation story seems like an explanation to the Hebrews of how the
ONE god created the cosmos, since they were living in the Babylonian
culture the Enuma elish was the accepted order of creation, however,
this tradition had many deities so the priests redefined it in terms of
one god to fit their beliefs. The Babylonians believed in gods who were
indifferent to mankind- this was the perception inherited by the Hebrew
priests.

J’s version is centered around man. This was written at a time of
the united monarchy when the Hebrews most probably believed that their
divine destiny was being fulfilled. This was a time when the common man
felt more blessed by god and the relationship between them was imagined
to be more intimate. Feeling blessed man equated the divine more with
himself, this can be seen in the way J portrays god in the image of a
man which can be seen in the Adam and Eve story in the garden of Eden.

P places man as one of the last to be made in creation, on day six
(Gen. 1:26), while J places man right after the earth and heaven were
created before even vegetation was created (Gen. 2:4b-5), even though a
garden had been planted in Eden for man which presupposes vegetation,
but the point of J’s account is that man was a necessary component to
“till the soil’(indicating its agrarian source) and the rest of creation
was created for man(Gen. 2:18-20). This is another indication of the
split between J’s and P’s accounts of creation based on their
perception. P saw man as relatively unimportant in the order of creation
(creating him on the sixth day), while J saw man as the purpose of
creation. However P does not see man as unimportant saying man was
created in the image of god and that he has dominion over the rest of
creation(Gen. 1:26-27). What this does show is the separation that had
come between the Hebrews and their God. Before, in the time of J, they
were close and everything was created for them, God was portrayed in the
image of a father. By P’s time God had become impersonal and distant, a
king that was to be obeyed.

This difference will become more apparent as I compared J’s and P’s account of the flood.

J - ‘it grieved him to his heart.’(Gen. 6:7), P - ‘I am going to
destroy them’(Gen. 6:13); when man became ‘wicked’(J) and ‘violent’(P)
the time came for the creation to be ‘blotted out’(J) or ‘destroyed’(P).
For J’s God this caused grief, God was close to his creation -Man. P’s
God is indifferent he notices man is corrupted so he decides to destroy
him, and that is that. Another aspect is the difference in the usage of
words. J uses wicked in contrast to P’s use of violent. Wicked is a bad
state of mind, violence is something the priestly class would be
familiar with since it is violence that took them out of Israel and put
them in Babylon, so it is at the forefront of their minds. J just talks
of a bad state of mind and not an aspect of it(i.e. violence is an
aspect of wickedness, as is corruption). J’s use of blot is softer than
P’s use of ‘destroy’…in fact the only time J uses the image of
destruction is when God is feeling sorry for what he did to man (Gen.
6:21).

One example from the creation story of the separation that existed
between P and god, which didn’t exist between J and god comes from
comparing Gen. 1:30”-everything that has the breath of life-“ with Gen.
2:7 “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life”. J gives man the
privileged of being given the divine breath, P however, gives every
creation the divine breath or breath of life make man more of a part of
creation and therefore separate from the divine. Following this line of
thought in the flood story we see in Gen. 7:15(and 6:17) that P
continues to use ‘the breath of life’ for all creation; however, J’s use
of the ‘breath of life’ in Gen. 7:22 could be interpreted as meaning
man and animals, but it seems from the sentence that he is speaking of
man being destroyed in somewhat poetic terms of awe since the verses
before it (Gen. 7:19-20) talk of the mountains being covered with water
in a sense of awe. J, seeing man as center of creation, would first
seem to speak of the destruction of man poetically, then continue by
explaining that everything was blotted out…”human beings and animals and
creeping things and birds of the air”(Gen. 7:23) so that those reading
would understand that just those in “whose nostrils was the breath of
life” were not the only ones who perished, as the only time he used this
phrase before was when he described the creation of man.

Another example is in Gen 6:8 “but Noah found favor in the sight of
the Lord” compared to Gen 6:9 “Noah was a righteous man…walked with
God”. J keeps man’s personal relationship with the divine by talking of
Noah finding ‘favor’ with god…exactly as one would describe a
relationship between father and son. P on the other hand separated Noah
from the rest of man, made him perfect and side by side with god, making
him not a son of god but another person for the Hebrews to stand in awe
of, something a priest had to do to justify himself being the
connection between the common man and the divine.

A sense of seperation can also be felt from P’s “the fountains of
the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed” which sounds
distant and mechanical while J’s “the rain from the heavens was
retrained” makes god sound more ‘humanlike’ since he has to retrain it
which makes it sound like he put some effort into it while closed is
just closed.

Finally, in J’s version, Noah examines the outside and when he
deems it dry he comes out of the ark himself, on his own volition(Gen.
8:12-13) which shows man having a freer will than in P’s version where
Noah does not come out till he is commanded to(Gen.8:15-16), again
signifying mans higher status in creation and closer relationship to the
divine.

In the end J shows that God is sorry for the destruction(Gen8:21)
which again portrays God as more human and caring rather than distant
and uncaring as shown in P’s version(Gen. 8:11-13).

I think I have adequately shown the difference in perception between
P and J. P comes from a time of strict religious hierarchy, where
priests are the connection between the common man and the divine which
by itself signifies that times perception of God as being distant and
uncaring. This most probably stems from the Hebrews feeling a sense of
abandonment, where till then they had been blessed by God and were under
his care…they were the people of the covenant. When they were defeated
and put in exile it must have felt like God had abandoned them and they
began to see him as distant and uncaring. In contrast, during J’s time
the Hebrews had a kingdom and seemed to be fulfilling their destiny as
Gods ‘chosen people’. This was a time of prosperity where it was felt
that the people were directly under Gods benevolent care. So J’s
portrayal of God is fatherlike, a carting father that creates man as the
center and basis for creation, looks over his creation and feels its
sorrow and happiness, like they were his children.

"God enjoins justice, kindness, and charity to one's kindred, and
forbids indecency, abomination, and oppression. He admonishes you so
that you may take heed."

Islam. Qur'an 16.90

"If you efface and overlook and forgive, then lo! God is forgiving, merciful."

Islam. Qur'an 64.14

"Happy is the person who finds fault with himself instead of finding fault with others."

Islam. Hadith

"Let there be no compulsion in religion"

Islam Qur'an 2:256

"Not one of you is a believer until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself."

Islam. Forty Hadith of an-Nawawi 13

"If you efface and overlook and forgive, then lo! God is forgiving, merciful."

Islam. Qur'an 64.14

"Better and more rewarding is God's reward to those who believe and put
their trust in Him: who avoid gross sins and indecencies and, when
angered, are willing to forgive... Let evil be rewarded by like evil,
but he who forgives and seeks reconciliation shall be rewarded by God.
He does not love the wrongdoers.... True constancy lies in forgiveness
and patient forbearance."

Islam. Qur'an 42.36-43

On Honesty:

"O ye who believe! stand out firmly for justice, as witnesses to God,
even as against yourselves, or your parents, or your kin, and whether it
concerns rich or poor: for God can best protect both. Follow not the
lusts of your hearts lest you swerve, and if you distort justice or
decline to do justice, verily God is well-acquainted with all that you
do."

Islam. Qur'an 4.135

"Those who act kindly in this world will have kindness." Qur'an 39.10

Hadith: “One day (at the time of the Prophet) a woman left her house to
go and pray at the Mosque. On her way she was met by a man who forced
her to have sexual intercourse. The woman screamed while the man raped
her. After he raped her the man ran away. A group of men (who
accompanied the Prophet on his flight form Mecca to Medina) passed by
the girl and she said to them (pointing in the direction of the man
running) “that man just raped me”. They then ran after him and caught
him and when face to face with the woman she said “yes that was the
person”. They went to the Prophet and the man said “Yes Prophet it was
me who did this”. The Prophet said to the girl “go now, God has already
pardoned you”. The Prophet then said to the man (while appreciating his
confession) “stone him”. He then said “Actually, he has already learnt
his lesson and if someone learns their lesson all the people of Median
will understand”.Ibn al-Atsir, Jami al-Ushul, IV/270, no 1823

Hadith: During the time of the Prophet (saw) punishment was inflicted on
the rapist on the solitary evidence of the woman who was raped by him.
Wa'il ibn Hujr reports of an incident when a woman was raped. Later,
when some people came by, she identified and accused the man of raping
her. They seized him and brought him to Allah's messenger, who said to
the woman, "Go away, for Allâh has forgiven you," but of the man who had
raped her, he said, "Stone him to death." (Tirmidhi and Abu Dawud)

Sûrah al Baqarah 2.223
'Your wives are your tilth; go then unto your tilth as you may desire,
but first provide something for your souls*, and remain conscious of
God, and know that your are destined to meet Him...'
* Note in Muhammad Asad's translation: 'a spiritual relationship between
man and woman is postulated as the indispensable basis of sexual
relations.'

Sûrah ar Rum 30.21
"And among His wonders is this: He creates for you mates out of your own
kind, so that your might incline towards then, and He engenders love
and tenderness between you: in this, behold, there are messages indeed
for people who think!

Sûrah al Baqarah 2.187
"... They are as a garment for you, and you are as a garment for them."

Sûrah al Nisa 4.19
"... And consort with your wives in a goodly manner, for if you dislike
them, it may well be that you dislike something which God might yet make
a source of abundant good."

Sûrah an Nâs 4.119
'O you who believe! You are forbidden to inherit women against their will...'

Quotes

"Make peace with the universe. Take joy in it. It will turn to gold. Resurrection will be now. Every moment, a new beauty." - Rumi

"God is a metaphor for that which transcends all levels of intellectual thought. It's as simple as that." - Joseph Campbell

"Naturally, every age thinks that all ages before it were prejudiced, and today we think this more than ever and are just as wrong as all previous ages that thought so. How often have we not seen the truth condemned! It is sad but unfortunately true that man learns nothing from history." - Carl Jung

"Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated. I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far that we should never again see the religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society." - George Washington

“If a problem is fixable, if a situation is such that you can do something about it, then there is no need to worry. If it's not fixable, then there is no help in worrying. There is no benefit in worrying whatsoever.” - Dalai Lama

“Be empty of worrying. Think of who created thought! Why do you stay in prison. When the door is so wide open?” ― Rumi